do what I say, when I say, and you will not argue with me. Jeffrey—”
“I will not come home, so spare Jeffrey the trip,” Emma declared with as much courage as she could muster. “I am a grown woman, I’m past thirty, and this is my decision.” She reflected that much of that was said for her own benefit.
“You are much too delicate to be away from home. Where are you living, anyway?” Victoria asked.
“In a trailer house with Sophie.” Emma hoped that poor old Jeffrey didn’t suffer the wrath of Victoria Merrill. He was close to seventy and had been the Merrills’ driver and the pilot of their small plane for as long as Emma could remember.
“I’m not a bit surprised. I knew that girl would always be trailer trash,” Victoria hissed.
“Goodbye, Mother,” Emma said and quickly turned off her phone. The first time she’d skipped out on a therapist’s visit and spent the afternoon in the park, her mother had installed a tracking device on her phone that let her know exactly where Emma was at all times.
“But only if the thing is turned on.” Emma pulled her knees up to her chin and took a deep breath. Talking to her mother hadn’t been nearly as difficult as she’d thought it would be, but then Victoria wasn’t standing in front of her with her mouth clamped in a disapproving expression and her eyes boring holes into Emma.
She eyed the phone in her hands as if it were a rattlesnake. “I can use Sophie’s phone when I want to make a call, and I see a landline over there on the kitchen counter. Mother will hate me . . .” She removed the back of her phone, took out the battery and the SIM card, and went inside the trailer and found a hammer in a drawer. She carried it outside and laid the phone down on the wooden porch floor.
“Sophie says I’m in charge of me. I don’t want Mother to find me,” she said as she drew back the hammer. With one well-placed hit, she crushed the battery and the SIM card, then drew back again and brought the hammer down on the face of the phone. Just to be sure, she hit it again until it was nothing but a pile of bits and pieces.
“That’s step one,” she said, but her hands were shaking when she laid the hammer on the porch railing and then swept all the pieces into a dustpan and took them into the trailer.
“What is all that?” Sophie asked.
“My phone,” Emma said.
“Wow, what did that phone do to you?” Sophie asked.
“My mother’s voice came through it,” Emma answered.
“Then good job,” Sophie said. “I’m going out to call Mama and Teddy and then get us some food. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
“I’ll be right outside,” Emma said. And in that moment, sitting on a wooden porch in a red plastic chair, Emma felt more alive than she ever had in her entire life.
Sophie sat down on the top step of the porch, waved at the folks around the table, and pointed to her phone. Filly nodded, and Arty gave her a thumbs-up.
Rebel answered on the first ring. “I’ve been expecting your call for the last hour. How did things go?”
Sophie hesitated for a second too long.
“What happened?” Rebel asked. “Did you have car trouble, or did you and Teddy break up? I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if he told you to go find another boyfriend since you refuse to marry him.”
“No and no, but I did go see Em in that place. Do you have any idea what happened to her to make her quit college?” Sophie asked. Rebel couldn’t possibly understand that Sophie had her reasons for not wanting to get married.
“That poor, sweet child. All Annie has heard is that Victoria said Emma was too delicate to endure the pressure of college and had to come home. Victoria has always pounded it into that girl’s head that she was fragile and never let her do anything for herself. I thought it was a bunch of bull crap, myself. A kid is as strong as you let her be,” Rebel said.
“I couldn’t stand to leave her in that dismal place, so I brought her with me,” Sophie blurted out.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Rebel gasped. “Victoria is going to go up in flames. How did you manage such a foolhardy thing? And why did you? You’ve never been impulsive in